We sit down with the directors of Monster Hunter World to discuss new features, future character tie-ins, and more.

By
Lynn Jisr

Monster Hunter World is an upcoming action RPG from Capcom and is the 6th primary title in the Monster Hunter series. While it had previously mostly appealed to a Japanese audience, the developers have taken measures to simplify the more complicated elements of the game to make it appeal to the Western market and make it more accessible to new players.

We sat down with the directors of Monster Hunter World Kaname Fujioka and Yuya Tokuda to talk about the biggest changes in the the title, their partnership with Sony, and the fate of the game on the Nintendo Switch.

IGN: For a person who’s never played a monster hunter game before, how easy will it it be for them to jump into this one?

We’ve made a variety of adjustments and improvements so first time players can get on board more easily. One thing is that we included voice acting in Japanese, English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish so that you can actually listen to the characters talking as you play in real time rather than having to stop. By also including tutorial advice in real time during the gameplay, I think first time players will be able to pick up the basics a lot more easily.

We’ve also improved the controls. They’ve been a bit unique in the past and a maybe difficult to understand. We’ve adjusted them to make it a bit more standard, a little bit more similar to other AAA action titles. Especially if you enjoy shooting games, we've made our bow-gun weapon controls feel a lot closer to typical shooters. So you can transfer your skills across and get started much quicker.

Do you think hard core fans will find the changes make it too simple?

We are confident that hard core players and veteran Monster Hunter players will still feel totally at home. We haven’t removed things that they like from the controls. We've just added more options and flexibility.

To give you an example, in Monster Hunter we've always been holding R1 to run and this isn't something you really see in most games anymore. In most games in the market, you click the left stick or L3 and that lets you run. We've included both options. Players who are used to clicking L3 get to use their muscle memory from other games. Veteran players get to use their Monster Hunter training and use R1 at the same time. So we haven't taken those options away from them. All we've done is make it a lot more flexible to suit different players’ needs.

The collaboration with PlayStation is actually kind of perfect since Aloy is a monster hunter. How did you think of this and how did PlayStation react when you approached them with the idea?

The producer of the game is normally the one who approaches other companies to do collaborations. Our producer Ryozo Tsujimoto reached out to Sony and Guerrilla Games and suggested that Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn, since she's also a hunter with a bow and arrow, would be a perfect fit and they were really positive. We heard in the past that Guerrilla Games have said that Monster Hunter was actually one of the inspirations behind Horizon Zero Dawn which made us very proud to hear. We played Horizon Zero Dawn and we really love it and think its a fantastic game. So both sides were just really positive about bringing this collab content out and thanks to the support of Guerrilla Games and Sony we’ve been able to successfully implement it.

In a dream world, which other characters would you like to include in Monster Hunter World?

We would love to see Arsus from World of Warcraft and the Lich King from The Wrath of the Lich King. But that’s just a personal opinion, don’t take it as a confirmation. We just love the characters.

*Note: The answer above was not translated word for word from Kaname Fujioka and Yuya Tokuda’s original answer in Japanese by the translator. This is a summary of a short discussion they had amongst each other. The summary accurately reflects the verdict of their discussion.

Would you ever consider adding monsters from other games as a form of collaboration?

We don't really consider that idea because the monsters are the unique part of Monster Hunter. The ones we create and spend a lot of time working on are the ones we want you to enjoy hunting. The fact is as well that it takes a long time to work behind the scenes on collaboration content up until we can finally announce it. Given the amount of time it takes to create a monster and make it fit into the game and make it work in terms of action gameplay with all the weapons and bows, it is not realistic to consider such a long timeframe for collaboration content. It would be great if we could someday but it's not realistic at the moment.

Do you have any plans to release Monster Hunter World on the Nintendo Switch, given the long history of partnership between Monster Hunter and Nintendo?

We don't have any plans for the Switch at the moment. Part of the reason is that the title has been in development for almost 4 years. At the time we had to commit to our hardware choices, we decided on using the most powerful current generation consoles available at the time, which was Playstation 4 and Xbox One. So [the decision was made] before the Switch was even announced or on sale.

It's also because for every title we decide what the best fit for hardware is for the concept. We don't just look at everything. It's more like “if we want to achieve this kind of game concept, where's the best place to achieve that?” and for this title the Playstation 4 and Xbox One were the best fit for us.

Monster Hunter World releases on January 26 for PS4 and Xbox One and later in the year for PC. Let us know in the comments below if you are fans of the series and what you think of the changes in the upcoming title.